Mark, Have they released a well plan for this hole? Do you know...

Mark,

Have they released a well plan for this hole? Do you know if they plan to core, plug back and then go horizontal, or is it a just a straight kick off and horizontal.

L-L,

I will have a go at answering your questions, but as Umiat due to the freezing conditions rather unique, they will only be best guesses.

In a "normal" water drive oil reservoir, where the oil is under pressure by the underlying water and where little gas as is present, then the aim of drilling horizontal, is to drill as close to the top of the formation as possible, which involves continual directional adjustments, to remain in the sand and below the shale or cap rock. This is called geo-steering, As the oil is being pressured from underneath by the water, in theory all the oil in the rock between the horizontally drilled hole and the water will be produced, as this is a permeable formation which allows fluids to flow through it.

The productivity improvement of a horizontal hole comes from the fact that when a vertical well is drilled it may only expose 10-20m of the formation to produce from, whereas a horizontal well can stay in the producing formation for as long as you can drill the hole. 1000 to 2000 m is common, and giving a much higher flow rate, with a much greater total oil production per well. The down side is that when the water hits the producing well, it tends to do it very quickly, therefore your best well can go from hero to zero very quickly.

Now what I don't know, Umiat oil is below freezing temp of water, therefore, it can't be a water drive. The drive mechanism will have be determined by the engineers on site, and they will determine the most economic location to place and geo-steer the horizontal leg. From the flow test of last years well, they had a pump installed, therefore it maybe a straight gravity drainage, and the well bore may actually lie at the bottom boundary of the producing formation.

The only reason to drill two over lying horizontal wells would be for very low permeable formations, eg shale oil/gas production.

I hope this helps you a little, but the main trouble with Umiat, is the fact of the freezing reservoir conditions, which is rather unique and challenging, requiring some out of the box thinking. Now the question is, is Linc up to the task? Time will tell.